


In case you don't live forever

by Arokel



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Episode: s3e13 The Eternal Knight Pt. 2, Light Angst, M/M, Quentin's is-it-suicidal heroism is still a v present theme though, the feelings talk they deserved, the s4 finale can bite me but you can read this as canon compliant I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 10:16:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18519391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arokel/pseuds/Arokel
Summary: The monster should be there. Eliot planned only so far as shooting it; he did not come prepared to make small talk.





	In case you don't live forever

**Author's Note:**

> Hey friends I hope you're taking care of yourselves <3
> 
> I sort of started this like an episode ago and it comes across a lot angstier post-finale, so... v rushed and p unedited but this is where we live now.

Eliot didn’t realize it was possible for the world to feel like it’s beginning and yet look so much like it’s ending.

Castle Blackspire is everything Calypso said it would be, except that it’s just truly, infinitely worse. Solid, jet black stone is never _really_ in vogue as a building material unless you’re a supervillain, but pairing it with the molten red of a flat globe’s burning, crumbling core is just… really just unpleasant.

But this is where the quest has led them, and this is where, if nothing else goes terribly, predictably wrong, it will end, and then they can get back to their lives. They can leave this oppressive prison of an architectural marvel and lead the lives the were supposed to lead, before everything went to such spectacular shit.

And Quentin wants to stay here, instead.

That’s a problem.

Because a pretty big part of Eliot’s bright shiny new life he’s planning to lead? Has Quentin in it. Almost all of it, actually.

Eliot has had a lot of time to think about where he went wrong, what misstep he made so grievous that his word isn’t enough to stay Quentin anymore. Given his track record, he supposes, it’s more likely a whole series of missteps, a goddamn 5k of Eliot fucking things up.

Maybe he should have said ‘no’ before Alice did; Alice, who betrayed them all and hurt Quentin more than Eliot ever has. Maybe he should have suggested the gun before Margo did; Margo, the Destroyer Queen, for whom violence is always the first and best solution. But he was paralyzed, the knowledge of what Quentin was proposing cold in his veins and in his voice, unable to speak beyond ‘I second that’.

But what do you say, when the love of your life tells you he’d rather spend eternity with some mistake of the gods than stick around with you and figure out a solution that doesn’t involve you losing him forever?

Quentin didn’t say that, of course, and he didn’t mean it that way. He’s doing his Quentin thing where he believes that his life isn’t worth living if he isn’t doing something tragically, idiotically noble with it. But Eliot can’t shake the thought that he wouldn’t be so quick to volunteer if he thought there was something waiting for him to come back.

The chill hasn’t left him, even within the sweltering halls of Blackspire. Quentin is willing to do this, give up his life, give up _Eliot_. He believes that there is nothing for him on earth, or in Fillory, or anywhere else Eliot can reach him. So Eliot fucked up, more spectacularly than anything else he’s ever fucked up in this clusterfuck of a quest.

Because the fucking starting line of this marathon of missed opportunities on Eliot’s part is the day when Eliot looked Quentin in the eye and said that there was nothing there for him, not between the two of them.

Eliot is going to rectify that. The god-killing gun tucked in his vest is a cold, weighty reminder of his past mistakes, pressed uncomfortably against his heart, but the bullet it bears is what will get them through this, and after that, after things are settled, Eliot will fix it.

That is Eliot’s only quest in this moment, more important than keys or magic could ever be.

He has to hand it to whatever copycat architect so perfectly replicated Castle Blackspire’s floorplan, because the hallways and staircases of this alien fortress are a familiar to his as his own Whitespire. He leaves Margo to play tour guide and slips down a side corridor with a little window alcove where Eliot and Quentin once fell asleep for so long that Tick thought they’d been kidnapped. It will let him out just behind Quentin, if he’s not mistaken, and so far he hasn’t been.

“It’s odd,” he hears the knight Ora say. “He’s never far off. Perhaps he’s fallen asleep. Stay here.”

One set of footsteps heads away down the main corridor, and Eliot hears Quentin’s back hit the stone wall.

Eliot seizes his moment.

“Quentin.”

“Jesus!” Quentin spins, eyes darting wildly until they land on Eliot, and Eliot reconsiders the wisdom of sneaking up on people in this nightmare fortress. “Don’t _do_ that, Eliot, fuck. What are you doing here?”

There is a chance, a small one, that Quentin won’t forgive him. Eliot may have misjudged the depths of Quentin’s self-sacrificial streak, or perhaps the harm has already been done and no noble acts of friendship and love can make up for it. But he has to try, because there is no other option.

“I followed you.”

Something like pain flashes across Quentin’s face, and Eliot’s heart constricts in sympathy. He put that pain there.  “Look, El, I’ve got this under control. Go back, get the keys –“

The monster should be there. Eliot planned only so far as shooting it; he did not come prepared to make small talk.

“In case you’ve forgotten, there are seven keys and seven of us, so we cannot in fact do anything until you get your pretty little ass in gear, Coldwater,” Eliot says. That pained regret flares in Quentin’s eyes again, and Eliot curses himself for his glibness.

“I have to do this first. I have to meet it, so it’ll bond with me – “ Quentin says, making a move towards the yawning darkness of the corridor. Eliot grabs him by the arm, too firm, and he stumbles back. “What the fuck are you doing? I have to – “

“No,” Eliot says simply, gentling his hand but not his grip.

“This is my destiny, Eliot,” Quentin insists, “just like Julia’s is to be a goddess and Margo’s is to be High King – “

“Then _what’s mine_?” Eliot demands, louder than he intends. Quentin glances around fearfully, but they are alone. “What happens to me?”

“I – don’t know. To, to live out your life, and, and be happy, and – “

“That’s bullshit.” Quentin’s searching eyes lock on Eliot, flashing anger, but Eliot forges ahead. “I don’t like that destiny.”

 

_Destiny is bullshit_ , Quentin told him once, crown in hand, standing proud against the disappointment that it wasn’t his.

Destiny _is_ bullshit. The crown Quentin once said was Eliot’s by blood is no longer his. Destiny is not immutable. But it’s easy to cling to when you think you’ve got nothing else.

Quentin clenches his jaw in impatience, back straight and defiant in a defensive stance Eliot can’t seem to help but bring out in him. “Yeah, well not all of us have the luxury of having _options –_ “

“Oh, because _this_ isn’t a choice – “

“It’s the _right_ choice – “

“Not for me!”

Quentin’s jaw clacks shut. Then his eyes harden and he says, “this isn’t _about_ you –“

Anger is not how he wanted this to go. The oppressive walls and eerie silence of the monster’s carefully-crafted prison scream _this is the moment; this could be it; this could be the end._ If it is, this isn’t how Eliot wants to go out, arguing with the man he came here to save.

Eliot takes a breath and resettles, the gun a reassuring weight against his chest.

“If this is your destiny, then mine is – is, I don’t know, to sit around in Fillory and die of liver failure before I’m forty. I’m not going to let that happen. To either of us.”

It’s true, most likely, and it galls him that he’s changed so little, but if Quentin hasn’t grown out of his self-destructive tendencies in fifty-something years, neither has Eliot. _Together,_ they work. Apart, they are the trash fire of neuroses currently at war.

“Sounds like that sucks, but this is _my_ choice. I’m the only one who can do this.”

Eliot could _scream_ in frustration if he didn’t know that would bring Ora and her charge running, and now that this conversation has begun they can’t move on until they finish it. He drops his hand from Quentin’s arm, feeling the gun shift slightly as he shrugs. “Why? Because you think the rest of us don’t give a shit about you? You don’t think Julia cares? You don’t think _I_ care? That I won’t miss you _every single fucking day_ if you don’t come back with us?”

“El -”

“Because I don’t know how to make you understand that you are loved, and you are needed, but I will stand here and leave our friends alone in this nightmare castle until you do.”

He will, too. They can figure it out without him, if they have to. Quentin maybe senses this, because he places his hands on Eliot’s shoulders as if to spin him around and march him back to the fountain, but he doesn’t push.

“Eliot, this is ridiculous, we don’t have _time_ – “

“We’re all going to get out of this and live disgustingly happy, carefree lives with nothing to do but sit around having touching heart-to-hearts, but – in case we don’t – “

_This is the moment_ , whispers the gun. _If you don’t say it now, you might never get to._ He breathes, once, to feel it press against his heartbeat.

“Q, you are – my life, it’s – shit. Most of the time. And that’s fine. But when you’re in it, it’s – I was wrong. You were right. We worked, and I was afraid because things don’t _work_ for me. I was wrong to turn you down. But now – if you do this, Q, I don’t think anything in my life is ever going to work again. I don’t think I know how to live it without you anymore. I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner.”

“ _Eliot_ ,” Quentin whispers, wondering.

“And I’m not going to let you do this to yourself because if you do, every chance I have at being happy ends up stuck here with you.”

“Eliot, I don’t – what – “

“I love you. So much. And there’s no way I’m letting you walk away from me again.”

Eliot watches Quentin’s eyes go wide in understanding as he leans in, inexorable, the weight of the gun and fifty years of memory driving him on. Quentin doesn’t close them, and neither does Eliot, not even when their lips meet, just once, and Quentin sighs a tiny sob into Eliot’s mouth.

“Eliot, we don’t have time – “

Eliot hushes him with a slow drag of lips over Quentin’s pulse. “Just give me until they come back. Please.”

Quentin’s jaw flexes under Eliot’s lips as he swallows. “Okay.”

“We will have so much time, Q,” Eliot says mindlessly, pressing his forehead against Quentin’s, staring deep into those wondering eyes, “and I am going to make up for every second I wasn’t there for you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Quentin whispers, ragged. “If I’d known – “

Now is not the time to admit the plan he concocted with Margo, not when they’ve only just come to this understanding, so Eliot only kisses him again. Quentin closes his eyes, allowing his awareness of the monster to take a backseat for just a moment.

It’s enough.

Eliot cups Quentin’s cheek with a reverent palm, fumbling in his vest for the gun with the other. Quentin’s cheeks are wet and they might not be happy tears, but it doesn’t matter because the gun is in his hand and there is movement at the end of the hallway that Quentin cannot see, _will_ not see until it is too late.

Quentin may forgive him or he may not, but this moment, no matter how final it feels, will not be the end of them.

The knight Ora’s footsteps return, followed by another, an alien, traipsing gait. Eliot presses his mouth desperately against Quentin’s, closes his eyes, and pulls the trigger.


End file.
